This week, I attended our Diocesan (Toronto) Clergy Conference in
Here in the Gospel of Matthew, the tax collector is named Matthew, not Levi as told by Mark and Luke. In all the lists of the 12 Apostles, a Matthew is named, but no Levi. When Jesus called him, Matthew was sitting at the booth or table near the city gate or in the marketplace. He was collecting taxes for the Romans and for their puppet tetrarch, King Herod. Taxes on the people were many and burdensome: road taxes, bridge taxes, tax on trade goods, plus personal or household tax. The taxes alone were bad enough, not to mention the abuses and dishonesty involved and the fact that the money went to a foreign government. No wonder the collectors were despised by all. No wonder Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees when they found him in the company of one such character. The hostility level was raised when Jesus and his disciples were having a meal in the house, sharing table fellowship with many other tax collectors and sinners.
Who are the others that are labelled “sinners”? One assumption is that they are Matthew’s friends and business associates, perhaps bankers who charged interests and have dealings with the Romans. Therefore, they may have been considered as traitors and ritually unclean, and forced out of the local synagogues.
Besides eating with these “undesirables” with Jesus, the disciples are asked to defend Jesus’ behavior and theirs. Here is a perfect example of triangulation in system theory. The Pharisees, who have a complaint against Jesus, don’t approach him. Rather they tell someone else, the disciples, who presumably will tell Jesus. He will be expected to respond to the disciples, who bring the message back to the Pharisees. Such triangulations happen all the time in our families, churches & any human organizations. However, Jesus destroys the triangle by answering the Pharisees directly, and not involving the third party in the middle.
However, the issue is still alive and well in our churches and the worldwide communion today. Some churches prefer to embark on a “Holiness Movement” of their own and pride themselves as the chosen ones of God, disassociating themselves from the undesirable and questionable characters of the world. They denounce the more liberal churches for abandoning tradition and orthodoxy, especially on the issues of homosexuality. Some have refused Eucharistic table fellowship with others over those controversies. The same Pharisees also accused Jesus for breaking with tradition and orthodoxy.
This week, I am very aware of the healing stories of Jesus in the second half of today’s Gospel (Matthew 9:18-26), as I went around for my pastoral visits. I went to see a dying man in the palliative care unit wanting to reaffirm his faith; a blind woman still adjusting to a new nursing home after almost a year; another man blind from his diabetic condition awaiting surgery in anxiety, and a woman in total confusion and delirium from her treatment with a persistent infection. I pray for healing in all of those situations, but in what forms will God’s healing come? I honestly do not know, but I believe God will heal them, just as Jesus healed the woman and the young girl in today’s stories. It is not up to me to decide, and it is a good thing, but we leave it up to God, by faith. Jesus asks us to trust in God’s mercy, his faithfulness and steadfast love. Without God’s grace, we all live under judgment and condemnation.
Let me finish with a story from the Internet:
in the middle of the day,
Decided to pause by the altar
and see who had come to pray.
Just then the back door opened,
a man came down the aisle,
The minister frowned as he saw
the man hadn’t shaved in a while.
His shirt was kind of shabby
and his coat was worn and frayed,
the man knelt, he bowed his head,
Then rose and walked away.
In the days that followed,
each noon time came this chap,
each time he knelt just for a moment,
A lunch pail in his lap.
Well, the minister’s suspicions grew,
with robbery a main fear,
He decided to stop the man and ask him,
“What are you doing here?”
The old man said, he worked down the road.
Lunch was half an hour.
Lunchtime was his prayer time,
For finding strength and power.
“I stay only moments, see,
because the factory is so far away;
as I kneel here talking to the Lord,
This is kind of what I say:
“I JUST CAME AGAIN TO TELL YOU, LORD,
HOW HAPPY I'VE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND EACH OTHER’S FRIENDSHIP
AND YOU TOOK AWAY MY SIN.
DON’T KNOW MUCH OF HOW TO PRAY,
BUT I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERYDAY.
SO, JESUS, THIS IS JIM
CHECKING IN TODAY.”
The minister feeling foolish,
told Jim that was fine.
He told the man he was welcome
To come and pray just anytime.
Time to go, Jim smiled, said “Thanks.”
He hurried to the door.
The minister knelt at the altar,
he’d never done it before.
His cold heart melted, warmed with love,
and met with Jesus there.
As the tears flowed, in his heart,
he repeated old Jim’s prayer:
“I JUST CAME AGAIN TO TELL YOU, LORD,
HOW HAPPY I’VE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND EACH OTHER’S FRIENDSHIP
AND YOU TOOK AWAY MY SIN.
I DON’T KNOW MUCH OF HOW TO PRAY, BUT
I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERYDAY.
SO, JESUS, THIS IS ME CHECKING IN TODAY”
Past noon one day, the minister noticed
that old Jim hadn’t come.
As more days passed without Jim,
he began to worry some.
At the factory, he asked about him,
learning he was ill.
The hospital staff was worried,
But he’d given them a thrill.
The week that Jim was with them,
Brought changes in the ward.
His smiles, a joy contagious,
Changed people, were his reward.
The head nurse couldn’t understand
why Jim was so glad,
when no flowers, calls or cards came,
Not a visitor he had.
The minister stayed by his bed,
He voiced the nurse’s concern:
No friends came to show they cared.
He had nowhere to turn.
Looking surprised, old Jim spoke
up and with a winsome smile;
“the nurse is wrong, she couldn’t know,
that in here all the while
Every day at noon He’s here,
a dear friend of mine, you see,
He sits right down, takes my hand,
Leans over and says to me:
HOW HAPPY I HAVE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND THIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND I TOOK AWAY YOUR SIN.
ALWAYS LOVE TO HEAR YOU PRAY,
I THINK ABOUT YOU EACH DAY,
AND SO JIM, THIS IS JESUS
CHECKING IN TODAY.”
What would be your prayers today?
How do you want to check in and pray?
Whatever is in your hearts and minds,
Healing and forgiveness God is ready to offer all the time.
To which we will always say:
Thanks be to God, forever and today.
Amen.
Fr. Victor+
www.stjd.ca